After the War
by frju18
Summary: The Wizarding world enjoys the calm after the first war and before the second. Harry Potter lives with his relatives for an unhappy decade without knowing of magic. He's not "normal," and his relatives aren't much good for anything.


Disclaimer: disclaimed. (i.e., not mine, etc.)

After the War (or Before)

Prologue

Unlike the Muggle ones, wizarding firecrackers never leave a smoky trail that muddies the clear skies, just sparkles and brilliance, and the sparkles and brilliance are magic in full splendour. The air still crackles with magical residue from the previous day's celebration. Even the Muggles feel it thrumming against their very beings, and pause to look about them but see nothing, so they call it "static." And maybe it's the closest they can get, but that's not quite it.

The day before was louder by far. Yesterday it was of thunder and bombs until the ears hummed in time with tremors from the explosions. Still, everyone flocked to the noise: it was joyous noise; it was beautiful noise. The owls were unbothered by the racket. Dutifully they swarmed the towns like feathered locusts, each one bearing good news that the recipient already knew.

Today they are nowhere to be seen, and the simple sparrows or ravens resume their avian chorusing. But despite the bustle of regular life, everything has quieted, now. The magical folk scurry through their routines with barely suppressed elation that fuses bizarrely with the tedium of to-day, justanother-day. In the not-quite hush, the wind itself, with a voice of rustling leaves, whispers, "Harry Potter lived. Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived."

Harry Potter lives. He is squeezed into a cupboard that's spacious enough but dark and oppressive and makes him wail piteously. His aunt, who only touches him with the utmost repugnance, ignores his distress or tells him to shut up. Aunt Petunia knows what he is, and she refuses to let the boy contaminate her son, her precious Dudders. Once he's inside, she locks the door and wipes her hands on her dress repeatedly. She draws the curtains over the windows, too, so that the neighbors cannot know the Dursleys have a new inhabitant in their house.

What a shock it had been to see her vile sister's child upon the doorstep! Before she saw the note, she knew what happened to his parents, and what would happen to him (because he was one of them). Then when she saw the note she discovered that she'd have to take him in. A conscience is a dreadful thing.

Now Vernon wakes and wants his breakfast. His frazzled wife has burnt his toast, so its hard edges scrape against his mouth. He's in a bad mood before he's done eating, and it's made even worse when Petunia beckons him to the cupboard under the stairs and--shock! a muffled cry sounds from within.

Vernon doesn't deal with the homeless; he'd much rather pretend they don't exist. "What's this?" he demands in a hard voice, and Petunia's face looks white and pinched.

"A boy--left on the doorstep--," she says evasively, picking at her fingernails in agitation. "We have to take him in."

Vernon, naturally of ruddy complexion, purples further. "Take him in? What makes you think we have any obligation to a whiny brat I don't even know?" He looms above Petunia, plainly insisting on receiving answers. Vernon is not a particularly tall man, but bulky enough to cow his wife.

She explains. Her sister (awful, despicable, etc.; she's told him all this before) was a freak, and married a freak, and her son would grow to be a freak too. But he's her blood, so she has to take him in. The whole story dribbles out of her mouth in a weak, convoluted mess, about magic and the war and Voldemort.

It doesn't make sense, but Petunia's the most normal woman in Surrey at least, if not all of England. She pleads with him to ignore the taint in her family. She didn't choose to have a sister like Lily, nor a brother-in-law like James Potter, nor a nephew like that in the cupboard.

The crying hasn't stopped, so Vernon kicks the door in irritation; it grows louder. Neither uncle nor aunt thinks to comfort Harry, so instead they withdraw to the opposite side of the house. That's where Dudley is, and he's been woken up from all the noise. His unhappy gurgles threaten to break into a shriek that will only add to the cacophony. Petunia pets him and serves him a mushy breakfast until he quiets.

Dear Dudley's pink, round face brings another question to the surface. Will Harry's presence harm him in any way? Wizards--that's what the freaks are: wizards and witches--are known to be violent.

"I'll teach him not to fear the freak," promises Petunia. "Our baby Duddie always comes first. And we can try to get rid of the magic in the Potter boy, too." The word magic makes them both shudder. It's not Normal.

"Keep him in the cupboard. Tell the neighbors he was dumped on us when his parents died in a car crash."

"They were always drunk...whiskey and beer," Petunia verifies, nodding fervently to herself, "and of a vigilante sort. Everyone around them knew they would come to a bad end." Her hands shake slightly. "But we'll make sure the boy doesn't turn out that way. Stamp out his freakishness."

A soft crash floats to their ears from the kitchen: the delicate hiss that one associates with shattering glass. With a turbulent apprehension that swells sickeningly beneath his skin, Vernon lumbers toward the kitchen, vaguely relieved that the crying has stopped. His wife trails behind, pausing to gape at the cupboard--unlocked somehow (but she won't say the m word).

On the floor sits Harry, his sticky fingers in his sticky mouth, which drips sticky drool onto his little shirt. Honey coats the lower half of his face (and some of his hair, too), and Petunia's gaze lowers to the normally spotless floor and lets out a garbled mix between a gasp and a scream.

Harry giggles around his hand, and then removes it from his mouth to scoop up more honey from where it is spilled on the floor. The honey jar lies broken on its side near his left ankle, so when he shifts to get better access to the sweet goo, his heel knocks against it. Nudged into an uneven roll, the jar oozes honey throughout its trek across the kitchen and comes to a stop at Petunia's suddenly unsteady feet.

And it's painfully, undeniably obvious to both Vernon and Petunia that the boy will be a freak.


End file.
